There are some words you don’t want to hear in an optometrist’s, and near the top of my personal blacklist is: “Oh well, at least the other one’s in pretty good shape”. (At the very top would probably be, “Hold still, I saw where it went and I’m sure I can pop it back in in a jiffy”.) Regular readers will be aware that I suffer from myopic macular degeneration in my right eye. This means that I have a blank spot right in in the centre of my vision in that eye, not unlike the cheesy special effect for an energy being in the original Star Trek. (If I’m reading, it’s a space about the size of the word “the”.) My peripheral vision’s still partly there, so when I’m having an eye test I have to sway my head around like the snake Kaa in The Jungle Book trying to hypnotise its prey just to read one of the big letters.
Swirl of Daisies
It’s all because I was born so short-sighted. My eye sockets are deeper than usual (30+mm deep, as opposed to the average of 20+mm), which stretches the blood vessels servicing the retina, particularly those to the macular, which is the bit that does all the work. Some of those have just become stretched to breaking point. (Or the way I look at it, some of the LED lights in the tv of my brain have blown, and they don’t make replacements any more.) It’s very weird. Straight lines bend around the blank spot, so if I look at grid pattern it resembles an illustration of a black hole distorting the fabric of space-time (look up “Amsler Grid” to see what this looks like; like I say, it’s weird). And it’s deteriorated quite a lot since my last checkup.
Photobombed by a Swallow
Still, it’s been this way for a few years now. It is what it is, and, as Gandalf so wisely observed, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us”. (In his case this meant overthrowing the Dark Lord of Mordor, whereas I prefer to spend my time on the couch knitting; each to their own.) So I continue to make progress on my olive gansey. I’ve finished the half-gussets, and divided front and back. This is always the payoff moment, when everything goes twice as fast and you can see the pattern really come together. I may never knit another cable pattern ever again, mind.
Budding Hawthorn
And anyway, even if one eye’s a crock I’ve still got another which is, I’m reliably informed, in pretty good shape. The consultant who first diagnosed my condition told me that it might never develop in this eye too, or “it could happen tomorrow” (I’m sure he meant to be reassuring). So as far as I’m concerned every day’s a bonus, and every piece of knitting is literally a stitch in time. And if the absolute worst should happen? Well, so long as they can find it and pop it back in I should be all right…
Missing Margaret’s photos on Blipfoto.?
That’s impressive progress on the gansey! I made a hat (1) this spring; first one in years.
I particularly like the sky-and-clouds picture. I was thinking lately that there aren’t enough birds any more; then I parked under a tree and found them.
Hi Tamar, congratulations on the hat! People should wear more hats.
If you’re looking for birds, come up to Caithness—specifically outside our window, round about when the sun comes up at 4.00am!—the little perishers taking the concept of a “dawn chorus” literally…
Sorry to hear about the eyes Gordon, it’s pretty rough.
Have you considered buying a parrot?
Which gives me the perfect excuse to quote Bob Dylan’s great lyric from A Simple Twist of Fate:
“He hears the ticking of the clocks
And walks along with a parrot that talks
Hunts her down by the waterfront docks
Where the sailors all come in
Maybe she’ll pick him out again
How long must he wait?
One more time for a simple twist of fate…”